


Real Gods Require Blood

by ohmytheon



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Noragami Fusion, F/M, Gen, Noragami AU, Other, regalia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 17:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12089742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: (Noragami AU) Roy has only ever been a god of calamity that knows of death until he finds a Regalia in Riza worth becoming more for, but after seemingly finding success, it looks like mayhem is returning in the form of Edward and Alphonse Elric, who should not exist by all rights.





	Real Gods Require Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_musical_alchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_musical_alchemist/gifts).



> I’ve got a few ideas where this is going, hinted at in what I’ve written here, but honestly this isn’t as set in stone as my Fate AU. It’s more than likely going to be a series inter-connected fics like my Star Wars AU (I have so many AUs, oh my god), but with a theme. None of the scenes are in chronological order, but go back and forth. Kind of like how Noragami did. Seriously, that anime messed me up real good. I was not expecting that. Alas, I can only write in spurts because of my baby. I wrote the majority of this tonight while she was with her dad.

It was the smell of blood that always startled him awake.

Roy’s eyes snapped open. There were no rivers of blood around him, only rain, and so he laid on the stone floor in silence and listened. A chill hung in the air from the storm, but he made no move to pull the blanket around him tighter. Instead, he let it seep into his bones until he was shivering. Still, he didn’t move. The cold washed away the feeling of blood.

“You’re going to get sick,” a tired voice sighed from further inside the temple.

Finally, Roy moved, rolling over onto his other side to face her. “Gods don’t get sick.”

“You can get blighted.”

“Are you going to do something terrible?” Roy asked.

Riza frowned and sat down next to him, folding her legs underneath herself. “Are you going to ask me to?”

“What a terrible thing to assume of me,” Roy replied with a smile as he slowly pushed himself up. He gave her a sideways look  “What kind of god do you think I am?”

“A foolish one,” Riza grumbled under her breath. She turned away from him to look out into the rain and huddled deeper into her coat. He’d given her the heavier one. She was so small. The second she’d come out of her regalia form after he’d first named her and taken her in, he had been shocked. How could a spirit that was able to take such a fierce regalia form be so fragile-looking?

She wasn’t weak though. She was the strongest regalia he had ever had. He treasured her more than he could ever admit out loud and she had never blighted him despite all that he had asked of her. She could have and he didn’t think he would’ve blamed her. The things he’d done before, as a god of calamity… Another god, a better one with a better conscience, would’ve used a Nora.

Instead, he’d used her, burned her with blood, and she had turned into a Blessed Vessel for him.

After that, he could no longer be the same god as before. She wasn’t the only one that had changed, but whereas she found new purpose and direction, he felt entirely lost. As the years passed, his name was slowly forgotten until only a few remained out of his desperation to stay alive. It would have been easy to revive his name -- all he had to do was go back to being what he was -- but that wasn’t who he was anymore. She had changed him and he was determined to live up to her.

So yes, he was a very foolish god, maybe even a little broken too. Roy held out a hand, letting the rain spatter on his open palm, and looked up to the sky. But one day, they would know his name -- all of them, those from the Near and Far Shore -- and they would no longer fear it as they once did.

*

It was always the whisper of prayers that brought him back to focus.

Fire sang in his blood. It burned through him, vicious and hot, whenever he worked. The wishes that he fulfilled were very rarely spoken with good intentions. They were born out of hate, rage, grief, confusion, fear. Those were the emotions that made up calamity and they were what he answered to at the end of the day. They were whispers in the dark, words not meant for the light of day, and he knew them all.

Gods like Roy weren’t meant to be revered. They were meant to be feared. It had been a long time since he had known anything but that.

_ He deserves to die.  He took her… He took my wife. I want them both dead. _

Roy stood in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, while the man sat on the floor with his head in his hands. “Are you certain that’s what you want?”

“I want their hearts torn out of their chest like mine has been!” the man cried out.

He didn’t think the man meant it so literally, but if that was what was asked of him specifically, he would do it. This was easy work. It didn’t take much effort. It wasn’t pleasant and it certainly wasn’t kind, but someone had to answer these wishes, didn’t they? These humans prayed to someone. They prayed to him. What kind of god would he be if he did not answer them?

Sighing, Roy held out a hand and waited patiently until the man dropped the payment in his hand. All it ever took to fulfill a wish were some heartfelt words and a few coins. It turned out that even human lives were cheap. He never counted to make sure he wasn’t shortchanged. Everyone knew what would happen if they crossed him.

He was not a god to wish for -- and yet people did.

*

Havoc jumped cheerfully in the air as he whooped. “We did damn good today!”

“We were adequate,” Falman replied.

“Damn good. Six phantoms all charging at once? That’s not adequate.” The sandy-haired regalia leaped over to Fuery, wrapping an arm around the younger man’s neck so that he could rub a knuckle in his hair. Havoc’s grin was almost bright enough to blind someone. “Our boy here got his first bit of action too.”

“I didn’t do much…” Fuery admitted, blush tinging his cheeks.

Havoc blew a raspberry. “Nonsense!”

“Coordinating all of my regalias is an important position,” Roy pointed out as he brushed past them.

Fuery turned even redder but said nothing in return. He was left to the mercy of Havoc and Breda piling on top of him with Falman sighing at the side. Riza followed Roy into the temple, leaving the four other regalias to hang back. It was beautiful outside, a sunny day, even more lovely now that it had been cleansed of phantoms hanging around the city after a vent was accidentally opened.

Roy paused once inside the temple, gazing at the shrines built inside. They were so shiny. Every inch of this place spoke of devotion and care -- of being remembered and known. He could breathe in here. After so many years, he had forgotten what it was like to be known. The others didn’t know. They didn’t know of Roy when he was a god that only a handful of people remembered. Riza, on the other hand -- she had known him through all of it.

Maybe that was why having a shrine now shamed him so much, even though he’d worked so hard to get it in order to be worthy of her.

“Do I deserve this?” Roy asked.

Riza peered at him. “Sir?”

“Do I deserve this?” Roy repeated. “To be beloved, to be wanted, to be needed.” When he looked down at his hands, he saw the blood that was no longer physically on them. It would always be there though. Blood followed gods of calamity. He would never be fully rid of it. “After all that I did…”

“Nothing will wash away your sins fully,” Riza said. But then she put a hand on his shoulder and he looked back up. A strong part of him wanted to grab her hand and yet he held back. He always did, but just barely. “But as long as you continue on the path you’re on, you will be worthy of this.”

Roy nodded his head and looked back at shrine.

_ But will I be worthy of you? _

*

He was dead and he was dying -- and there she was, the most beautiful soul that he had ever come across. She was lost and far from home, but she had nowhere else to go. Uncorrupted souls like her in this world either eventually moved on if they were lucky or were corrupted by phantoms lurking in the dark. It would not be long before she was taken and for the life of him he could not let it happen.

Maybe it was selfishness and desperation on his part because he needed her, but in the years to pass, she would always say that he saved her from certain darkness.

Blood poured from multiple wounds and he struggled to breathe as he stood before her bright soul, a god no one would want yet still needed anyways. But he could not be the god he was without a weapon. As terrifying and powerful as he was, his work on the Near Shore was worthless without a regalia and he was so well-known for his work there.

“You, soul, with nowhere to go and nowhere to return!” Roy called, drawing the appropriate symbol in the air as a phantom roared behind him. “I grant you a place to belong. Mustang is my name. Bearing a name after death, you will remain here; and with this name, I make you my servant. I use my life to make you a Regalia! You are Riza! Come, Hawkeye!”

And that soul, so beautiful and bright, turned into a beam of light, driving the phantom back. Roy threw out his hand as it shot into the air and into his grasp. When he opened his eyes, he nearly gasped. A long black whip, sharp as a tack, that he knew deep down was something so much more. He’d never seen a regalia take such a shape and yet somehow he also knew how to use it.

When the phantom gathered its bearings and leapt to strike, Roy leaped in the air and cracked the whip in the monster’s direction. “Rend!” he ordered. The whip squeezed and the phantom exploded into a ball of light. The regalia was incredible.

Landing on the ground, Roy closed his eyes and raised his face to the clouds. The regalia hung loosely in his hand, asking nothing of him. He could feel it patiently waiting. How unusual. Most Regalias were very talkative at first, confused about what was going on, especially if they were immediately used in battle. He had never been careful with them before. Something told him that he should be different now, but he had always been reckless by nature.

“Riza,” he said without a care and the whip glowed and transformed into a person.

He nearly choked at what he saw.

She was a young woman, a few years younger-looking than him, with wide amber eyes and short blond hair. The innocent expression on her face caught him off guard. She was so small, wrapping her arms around herself to brace against the chill of the night. He wasn’t prepared for her to be wearing a thin dress with no shoes or the way she looked at him expectantly as she bit her lip.

“You…” Roy didn’t know what to say.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Riza asked.

Roy took a sharp intake of breath, but then nodded his head. She took a deep breath and looked down at the ground, taking in the situation. He didn’t know what to say. Of course she was dead. Regalia were made of human spirits that had died and not passed on yet. Sometimes they did; sometimes they didn’t. Some avoided becoming phantoms, but most didn’t without the help of a god. He did not doubt her strength -- he’d felt it firsthand -- and he was grateful that she was a regalia and not a phantom.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Roy promised and Riza smiled.

He lied. She didn’t know who he was and for the first time he didn’t either.

*

Roy smirked to himself and turned back to face his shrine so that no one would see. He definitely didn’t want Edward to see the look on his face or the kid would blow a gasket. It was enough to watch him freak out as Roy’s regalias teased him about how much he’d grown in the past years since they’d last seen him.

“He looks so...young,” Riza sighed. “He’s barely aged.”

“Well,” Roy replied carefully, turning back to survey the scene, “he’s a child.” The look Riza gave him would’ve been strong enough to shrivel most gods, but he was a little more used to it, so he shrugged his shoulders. “He’s a god -- in a sense. There’s a chance that might look like this for a long time.”

Though he would never talk about it out loud with the other regalias and especially Edward so close, Edward’s appearance was troubling. Even worse was his brother standing to the side, smiling and laughing. Alphonse was an incredible soul, bright like Riza. He was of good humor, optimistic, and very protective. The fact that he was his own brother’s regalia was very disconcerting, however. Gods didn’t die like humans. Only humans could become regalia and only gods could make regalia. Edward’s and Alphonse’s existences were exceptional.

And the Heavens did not like exceptions.

Riza hummed thoughtfully. “You don’t want to spoil his happiness, do you?”

“His happiness?” Roy scoffed and shook his head. “I don’t care about that. But his hanging around might be trouble on our doorstep.”

“Since when have you ever worried about trouble?” Riza asked, a slight smile on her face. “As your longest regalia, I know you better than that.”

Roy would’ve scowled if he didn’t know that she would comment on that as well. Of course she knew him better than that. She knew him better than anyone in his entire life -- and he had lived a very long time. She had seen him at his worst, his best, his lowest, and highest. Hopefully, she would see him for many centuries to come. He did not want to be like one of those gods that reincarnated all the time. Somehow, he had lived through everything and become something more. Somehow, he’d outlived his old name.

If everyone could forget that he was truly a god of calamity, he could die in peace if he was forgotten, but no, he and Riza would never forget.

“A product of a god and human should not exist,” Roy pointed out.

“And yet you watch after him,” Riza said.

Roy frowned and watched Edward and Alphonse laughing in the courtyard. It did not make him happy or upset. To be honest, he didn’t know what it made him feel. Fear maybe -- and he had not felt that for a long time.

*

To wish for the death of a person was no small thing. It only cost a few coins, sure, but very few considered the tax it took on the soul.

Now, to wish for the deaths of many? That was another thing. It still didn’t cost much physically -- humans were so cheap, after all -- but it was a price a person took to their graves. To Roy, it was nothing. He was a god. At the end of the day, what were humans to him but matter? He had been above them for as long as he could remember. All they had to do was forget him in order for him to die, but petty, cruel, and selfish as they were, humans would always have use of a god like him.

Even Riza didn’t blink. She might’ve been horrified at first, but she had never said anything against what they did. Any other person might’ve used a Nora -- would’ve used a Nora -- to do what he did, but she was his regalia and to be his was to know him and to to know was to do what he did. It was not pretty or pleasant. It was not kind or beautiful. It was nothing like she was. He’d stained her, but she had never blighted him for it.

He had been called upon to do many a terrible thing, sometimes in the name of revenge, sometimes in the name of greed. In the end, someone usually died. Once Riza had asked him if he enjoyed doing these kinds of jobs, but it was all he had ever known. He didn’t know how to want for something else.

“I’m a god of calamity,” Roy told her as they stood over a dead body. “I’m not meant to bring peace.”

Riza bent down to examine the body, the very one in which she had killed while as a regalia. “But this man killed the daughter of the woman who wished for you and got away with it. Did you not bring the mother peace?”

“Death never brings peace,” Roy said. “It only replaces the rage with emptiness.”

“And what do you feel?” Riza asked, glancing up at him.

Roy clenched his jaw. He’d never been asked such a thing. No one had ever asked him how he felt after fulfilling a wish. Many gods were able to fulfill light and wonderful prayers, but there were gods like him that were left to do the dirty work. Someone had to. No one talked about it, of course, and the other gods scorned them for it. The gods of fortune were so revered and so many more and the rest like him were expected to work and destroy and be hated and be content with it.

He didn’t know how he felt. It had never occurred to him that he might have that right.


End file.
